Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Le Tour De Awesome...I mean France!

Well, it's July. Summer, heat, lots of riding (hopefully!), and of course, The Tour de France. It has really been a great Tour to watch. Listening to the magical voices of Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwin, are like cuddling up to a good book with a blanky! SO comforting for me, at least. Anyway, the action in the Tour has been fantastic! Lance has had a rough go, but honestly, it was bound to happen eventually with all the good luck he's had over the years. He has shown he is not a quitter, and barring another crash he should finish this Tour too! Thanks Lance for all the great memories, and "F" Floyd! Schleck and Contador battling it out like two prize fighters! People will argue for years on this, with Schleck's mechanical and Contador not "waiting"for him. All I can say is if Schleck had punctured, would Contador have to wait for that too? In my opinion, that's part of racing...sorry Schleck.

ANYWAY, I ran accross some great photos (that I did not take) of this years Tour and thought I'd share them with you! Enjoy.

(click on pics to enlarge)

This is a shot of Christophe Moreau in the Alps. Beautiful. I believe this is his 14th Tour! He is also the oldest rider in the field at 39 years young! Allez Christophe!

These next shots depict how brutal the Tour can be regarding crashes and the pain of the Tour in general.

This is a shot of Sprinter Extraordinaire Robbie Mc Ewen. Notice the blood all over the side of the motorcycle! OUCH! Robbie has been one of the most feared sprinters in Tour history. He has not won a stage this year, but there is still some left.

This unlucky bastard is Tyler Farrar. He is one of the United States great young riders. He is a sprinter and had high hopes this year to win a stage or two, unfortunately, he fractured his elbow here in a crash. He did keep riding and almost won a stage but had to drop out later. Bummer.

This is Christian Vande Velde, a top overall contender, who rides for Garmin/Tansitions. After this crash Christian finished the stage but found out he fractured his ribs and had to leave the race. He could be the next American to win it!

This dude is Didi. Didi is from Germany and has been showing up at the Tour de France every year for as long as I can remember. He is known as the "Devil", and I am not sure why, but he shows up everywhere during the racing, mainly in the mountains. He was the first to "costume up" for the Tour and now there are a bunch of wannabe's that dress up to try and get some publicity or camera time. "The Devil" is the original!

Man, super steep going down this baby, but they also have to climb up stuff this steep too! A beautiful photo. I love the Tour de France, and hope you enjoyed this little passage. Adieu!